Friendly Fires Eyeing New Direction for Next Album

Friendly Fires have begun working on a follow-up to their 2011 release, 'Pala,' but they don't expect their new album to sound much like that pop-oriented platter. In fact, Ed Macfarlane reveals that the band is taking a whole new approach this time around.

"The music -- the way we're writing and the style of it -- is very different to anything we've done before; I think we're still learning to write music in a different way," the frontman tells NME. "We want to write something long and expansive and drawn-out and, I suppose, a bit more psychedelic."

Friendly Fires are currently recording with producer Andrew Weatherall, and Macfarlane is amazed by the early results. "We've done one track and we've got four more ideas that are in the pipeline to be worked on," he adds. "They're all about eight minutes long. We're at a stage now where we've had two successful records and we can write something solely for ourselves."

No word yet on when we can expect to hear the new material, but he insists it is on the way. "They're going to have to see the light of day, otherwise we'll never put out another Friendly Fires record," concludes Macfarlane.